The Hangover ****

“The Hangover” is flat out funny. From start to finish it is absolutely hysterical. What’s more is that I started to care about the characters and the pickle they find themselves in. I also cared about the groom, who is missing through most of the film. Each actor gives his character small ounces of believability, so this is not just a wild R rated comedy, but it is a bit of a character study too!

Director Todd Phillips knows how to direct this kind of material as he gave us “Road Trip” and “Old School”, but I now fully believe that he has not been given a truly great script until now. A director who knows comedy, saddled with a screenplay that portrays real characters, and funny dialogue, equals one of the best comedies in recent years.

Bradly Coopers, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis all get star making roles as the trio of friends throwing a bachelor party for Doug. They decide to head to Vegas for the night to send the groom off in style. They start the night on the roof of the hotel where they are staying, toasting each other and providing the groom with advice. We then cut to the following morning, where the three men wake up with a tiger in the bathroom, a baby in the closet, missing teeth and no groom. The rest of the movie follows these guys as they try to piece together what happened and find poor Doug before the wedding.

Finding Doug involves crazy tazer obsessed police officers, a wedding to a stripper, bizarre Chinese gangsters, a hilarious encounter with Mike Tyson and a very, very upset bride to be. To say anything more would be to ruin any of the fun. Go see “The Hangover”. That’s all I am going to tell you. See it with a date or a group of friends. This could be the most enjoyable movie of the summer. We’ll see.